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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GVTucker who wrote (38109)	7/6/2000 12:59:16 PM
From: lawdog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

Could you provide just one shred of evidence that there is manipulation in the price of CSCO? Just because a stock may be overvalued doesn't mean that manipulation got it there. And for a large cap stock, the odds are about zero that anybody has the power to manipulate its price. The market as whole, techs especially, has been manipulated. One example of large scale manipulation is the claim that bonds are riskier than stocks. The public has been fed b.s. for years and now this b.s. has become "fact" because nobody will question it anymore (or at least if they do they get no press). As for other forms of manipulation, csco would be difficult but not impossible to walk up. Aggressive growth managers acting in concert could do so. There is also a secondary effect of a bastardization of valuation yardsticks by the overall manipulation. Blaming US GAAP is also not the way to go. Yes, pooling is allowed, but this does not change the cash flows and does not change the economics. The nice thing about US GAAP is that disclosure is much more onerous than any other country out there. For example, German GAAP does not allow pooling, but this does not matter because a company can write off just about anything they want at their discretion. This would allow a de facto pooling without any of the concomitant disclosure that helps US investors make a decision. It sure is the right way to go. If investors are so smart and can see right through pooling why are the techs company's putting up such a stink over it? Why are they spending hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying Congress? It's because they are scared. Scared of the truth. As for German Gaap, give me a break. Germany accounting standards DO NOT allow companies to make it up as they go along. Please put a couple of examples in a post. The fact is that GAAP is not very good at dealing with tech companies. The earnings are not what they seem. Also, why do so many techs use the indirect method of cash flows when everyone knows that this is the less revealing and informative method? Cisco investors are fully aware of the accounting impact of pooling of interest accounting. The market has decided that this is an efficient way for Cisco to fund its R&D effort. Just because you and I disagree does not mean that anybody is being deceived. Quite the contrary, if you believe this, you are probably underestimating your competitors. I disagree. The public would be aware if csco's P/E suddenly soared to 1000 or higher. People are basically lazy, including plenty of analysts and money managers